Not a Dropby Ronnie Smith

Genre:DramaSwearwords: A lot of strong ones.Description:The concept of doing as you're told without asking questions is made clear to John, a student at the University of Life._____________________________________________________________________‘Ah, there ye are now, Black Fella,’ said Pat from Cork in his irresistibly soft lilting voice. ‘You come with me and I’ll give you a fookin great job that’ll keep you out of mischief for the whole summer.’ I nodded and put an Embassy Regal between my lips. ‘Sure, it’s such a great job you’ll not want to go back to college.’ I smiled at him, lit the cigarette and followed him out of the compound where the Joiners and Labourers kept their stuff and where the workshop and storeroom were.

Pat was a Ganger, my Ganger. That is to say that he was in charge of the labourers’ gang that I had been assigned to. All the Gangers on the site, and there were many, were Irish and, after some intricate investigation, it became clear that they were all related in some way. Pat called me the Black Fella because I tanned quickly while digging holes and shovelling concrete for days on end in the great Ayrshire outdoors on the coast. By early August I took on a Turkish appearance while he steadfastly remained his pale and interestingly freckled self.

Pat was tall and quite a nervous man in his early fifties. He walked with a long stride and a bit of a stoop and deliberately maintained the air of a childish imbecile in order to escape any form of responsibility. I liked him, how could you not, but he could never be trusted. If something went wrong, as it often did on site, Pat would disappear for a few hours until blame had been apportioned and the rest of us had sorted things out.

We walked a little way round the site and out through the main gate. Security was understandably tight, it was after all a nuclear power station and we had to show our ID cards as we passed the gate house. ‘Pat, are ye good?’ enquired one of the security guys, filling his black semi-police uniform in a manner that P.G. Woodhouse might describe, until no more of him could be poured into it. ‘Alright now,’ said Pat with his infant’s smile by way of a civilised reply.

‘Now!’ started Pat, grabbing my arm as we headed across the flat wasteland beyond the galvanised steel security fence, towards a newly completed pump house. ‘I’m giving you over to Wee Pat Duffy there. He needs a big strong lad like you that’s good with a shovel. You’ll be just fine with Wee Pat.’

Wee Pat was indeed relatively short but his strong upper body gave him a chunky appearance. He was standing in the shade of the pump house waiting to greet us. Leaning against the roughcast wall with his legs apart in a pair of black wellington boots with the tops turned down, despite the dry July heat. He was wearing old unbranded jeans, an old polo shirt and a dull checked jacket. He had an intelligent and witty red face, covered in bristles that he had probably been born with, and tight curly black hair flecked with what looked like sawdust. His left hand was buried deep in the pocket of his jeans while the right was exercised by the process of smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t work out exactly how old he was but I decided to go with forty five and I felt, by just looking at him, that we would get along fine. In the old days it could have been said that I liked the cut of his jib.

We walked up to Wee Pat and Pat from Cork introduced us, ‘Aye you’ll be fine with the Black Fella here, he’s a good boy.’

‘Aye fine,’ said Wee Pat in an equally quiet but surprising Scottish voice, shaking my hand firmly with a palm that felt like coarse sand paper. I smiled and almost said ‘fine’ as well but decided to keep my mouth shut instead.

Then Pat from Cork, without any further conversation, quietly turned and walked back towards the main site.

‘Strange guy,’ said Wee Pat. ‘So you’re the Black Fella or do you have a real name?’ I smiled, ‘John, my name’s John. I’ve not seen you around Pat.’

‘Naw, I just got here. We have a special project to work on and I’m supposed to be an expert in the field.’ He smiled and pointed to the arid field between us and the security fence. ‘Let’s have a wee cigarette and I’ll bring you up to speed, as they say on T.V.’ I got the feeling that we would be smoking quite a few wee cigarettes during the summer and that I would have to increase my consumption.

We sat down in the shade on the concrete step at the entrance to the pump house and lit another cigarette, both of us on standard-sized Regals, the shorter ones with the blue graphics on the packet. ‘I just can’t be doing with this heat, son’ Pat gasped with the effort of sitting while wiping the endless sweat on his bright red brow.

‘Now, you see this field?’

I nodded at the parched piece of ground in front of us, the size of about four football pitches. ‘Well it looks like the Arabian desert at the moment but apparently, in the winter, it floods like hell and then the flood overflows onto the main road behind us and also over into the road that goes into the power station. It floods the security guard’s house too. In fact it has become a real problem and nuclear power stations are not supposed to have real problems, or so we are told.’

I kept nodding as all of this made perfect sense and I was sticking to my policy of saying as little as possible.

‘So, the bosses have decided that it’s time for this problem to be solved and we, my good young friend, are the solution. You, me and auld Willie over there.’

I had no idea who auld Willie was but I followed Pat’s pointing finger until my eye settled on a bright yellow Komatsu excavating machine sitting about one hundred and fifty yards away, floating in the simmering heat. However I couldn’t see any sign of a human presence.

Pat took a long draw on his cigarette. ‘We are going to be digging field drains all across here,’ he waved his arm carelessly in the direction of the field. ‘The idea is that the water will soak into the ground, once we’ve finished, and then run into the drainage pipes that we lay. Then the water will run through all the smaller pipes into one large pipe that we will lay right down the middle and into the main water outlet that starts inside this pumping station.’

‘Wow!’ I said, forgetting to keep my mouth shut. ‘That sounds really cool. So who does what in this great project?’

Pat took another long draw, sighed and wiped his brow again. ‘Well, auld Willie will dig the trenches with his machine and help to lay the base for the pipes, to keep them in line. You’ll get your shovel and make sure that everything is smoothed out and that the pipes fit end-to-end. And I’ll supervise and make sure that everything is going in a straight line.’

‘That sounds quite straightforward,’ I said, blowing more smoke into the air. ‘Aye,’ said Pat. ‘But there are two sticky bits in all this.’

‘Sticky bits,’ I repeated. ‘What are they?’

Pat threw his cigarette end down a hole in the ground and rubbed his chin, the sandpaper of his hand scratching against the sandpaper of his stubble. ‘The first problem is that water follows gravity and only runs downwards. So we need to make sure that the trenches are shallow at the far end and deep at the point where they meet the main trench in the centre. It’s kind of tricky because when we cover everything up and there turns out to be a problem, we’ll have to dig it all up again and that’s a real pain in the arse.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘I get it. What’s the other sticky bit?’

Pat lit another cigarette and scratched his head, sending sawdust everywhere around him. ‘The other sticky bit is that we have to work with an engineer.’

I decided to take a break from cigarettes for the moment. ‘OK, so why’s that a problem?’

Pat sighed. ‘It’s a problem, John, because most engineers, especially young ones, are fucking idiots.’

I decided to end my break from cigarettes, ‘So we have time for another cigarette?’ ‘Yes, son, we certainly do. You catch on fast.’

We lit up and sat there smoking some more, Wee Pat and the Black Fella. Team A. ‘So, John, where are you from?’

‘Largs,’ I said. ‘The Jewel of the Clyde.’

‘Oh,’ said Pat, ‘you’re one of those posh folk?’

‘I certainly am not,’ I smiled. ‘I come from a scheme, not everyone is posh in Largs, you know.’ It’s important to defend your roots, especially if they are lowly. ‘What about you?’ I responded somewhat aggressively.

‘Kilwinning, not really the jewel of anywhere but at least we’ve got a better team than you.’

I snorted. He was referring to the rivalry between our local junior football clubs, Largs Thistle and Kilwinning Rangers, and he was right, at least in terms of last season. ‘And what about the mystery man over there, auld Willie?’

Pat chuckled. ‘Ah well. You need to be careful with him. He’s from Galston and from what I could make out, just from talking to him this morning, he’s the most bad- tempered wee bastard I’ve ever met.’

‘So, he’s wee as well as old?’ ‘Aye.’

‘Bitter?’

‘As a lemon. A right wee Proddy.’

I smiled, ‘I’m a right wee Proddy too, you know.’

Pat shook his head, ‘Naw, son, I can tell just by looking at you that you are nothing like a right wee Proddy. You’re on your way out of here and good luck to you.’

He was right again but I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or offended. ‘Well at least we’re all from Ayrshire,’ I offered in a neutral tone.

I looked up and saw a tall man in his late twenties, wearing flashy new riggers boots coming toward us. ‘That could be the engineer,’ I announced.

‘Aye,’ said Pat shaking his head. ‘Like I said, sticky.’

Pat stood up and waved over to the Komatsu, telling auld Willie to come and meet the engineer.

A small, shambolic figure emerged from the silent machine which, I was to discover, was Auld Willie’s office, living room and bedroom. He climbed down from the cabin and had to jump onto the ground because he was too small to make the last step. As he landed I heard him shout ‘Fuck!’ loudly and for no obvious reason. I discovered that this happened quite often and it was only when I saw a documentary about Tourette’s syndrome on TV, many years later, that the phenomenon of auld Willie started to make sense. He was wearing a blue boiler suit, filthy and ripped at the pockets and a pair of standard issue black Wellington boots that came up to his knees, making him lurch awkwardly over the ground rather than walking.

The young engineer, tall, athletic, bearded and obviously supremely confident in pressed jeans and a noticeably clean red polo shirt had stopped at a point in the middle of the field and I could see that he was purposefully holding a rolled up set of plans. We, the three drudges in this operation, arrived at the spot at the same time.

‘Gentlemen!’ began the young engineer, smiling broadly through his beard. ‘I’m Alan and I’ll be your engineer and leader for this vital project. Who are you guys?’

‘I’m Pat,’ said Pat, shaking Alan’s hand. I followed his example and also looked at auld Willie, who nodded and eventually mumbled ‘Willie’ without making any effort to shake hands with anyone. ‘Far more serious than bitter,’ I thought.

‘Great! Let’s get right into it,’ said Alan, continuing to smile while hunkering down on the dry ground to spread out his plans. Pat and I did the same but Willie didn’t have to as his head was already close enough to the ground without having to bend down. We each held a corner of the plans to stop them rolling up and Alan explained the job. The drawings were simple, like a Christmas tree dug into the entire width and length of the field.

‘The main trench starts from right where we are now and stretches straight down to the pump station. As you can see, the subsidiary trenches come in to meet the main trench at equal distances along its length.’

Alan looked earnestly at us and we nodded.

‘All the trenches will have smooth gradients, allowing the rain water to travel down the pipes to the main trench and then down to the main drain in the pump station. The pipes will be laid end to end but not joined together as the water will easily flow through them in such hard ground.’

Alan looked at us earnestly again and again we nodded. Willie muttered ‘Fuck’ in a low voice.

‘What?’ said Alan. ‘Nuthin,’ said Willie.

‘Right,’ said Alan. ‘We’ll start doing the levels and the marking out later today and then, William, you can start digging right away. OK?’

Willie, or ‘William’ as Alan would henceforth refer to him, and his face stood absolutely still, like one of the statues on Mount Rushmore.

Having received no feedback, Alan shook his head slightly. ‘So, gentlemen, this should be a piece of cake and a nice steady summer’s employment for the three of you. Any questions?’

‘Aye,’ said Pat. ‘Just one thing.’ ‘Go on,’ smiled Alan.

‘Well, what kind of bedding are we going to use for the pipes, the usual aggregate?’

‘No,’ Alan answered immediately. ‘No, not this time. A new type of sand has become available and we can use that instead of aggregate. It’s cheaper. But we’ll still use aggregate to cover the pipes up to a foot below ground level, to let the water through.’

‘So,’ continued Pat, ‘we’ll use sand to bed the pipes instead of aggregate?’ ‘Yes, that is correct,’ Alan replied, with a noticeable edge to his voice.

Pat smiled a very mysterious, very personal little smile. Willie muttered, ‘Fuck.’ And I felt a surge of confusion travelling from my stomach to my mouth.

‘But…’ I didn’t get any further as Pat gave me a small but significant sideways look with a very definite twinkle in his eye. I shut up.

‘But what?’ Alan looked at me with some menace. ‘Are you an engineer too?’ ‘Nope,’ I heard myself say just as Willie would have said it.

‘Great!’ said the beaming Alan. ‘I’m told that the joiners will finish making the markers later this morning and we can all bring them over after lunch. OK?’

This time we all nodded but Willie still said ‘Fuck’. Then, ignoring Willie, Alan rolled his plans up neatly, stuck them under his right arm and strode off back to the management compound.

Pat and I decided that it was definitely time to have another ‘wee cigarette’ and Willie took a tin of cigars out of the pocket of his boiler suit. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, it must be true these things really do stunt your growth’, but I kept my mouth shut as it was obvious that Willie seemed to have been deprived of a sense of humour. After a minute or two of quiet, reflective smoking I couldn’t contain myself any longer. ‘Sand!? How can we put sand under the pipes? Evan I know that it won’t hold them and they’ll just move apart when the water is soaked up by the sand. Not one drop of water will ever reach the main drain.’

Pat nodded and smiled his little smile while Willie shook his head and mumbled ‘Fuck’.

‘Don’t you worry about it,’ said Pat. ‘We’ll just do as we’re told. We’re not engineers, remember, we’re just common five-eighth labourers. We are absolved from thinking. We do our work and then we go home.’

‘But,’ I was outraged. ‘But we will be wasting our time doing this for the whole summer. It’s just stupid and we said nothing. It makes no sense.’

Then Willie spoke. The only speech that I was to hear him make all summer, in a low, rough, rasping voice. Even Pat was surprised.

‘Look, son. We could have argued with Alan all day long but he wouldn’t have listened and, anyway, he can have us bagged out of here any time he likes. He’s wrong and we all know it but he’s the engineer. He went to university and we didn’t. We’re nuthin in all this, we just do as we’re fucking told. Then we get paid each week and then we go home and play reasonably happy families, go to the pub and watch the fitba on Saturdays. And that’s it, period, no arguments.’

‘Aye,’ said Pat.

‘Right,’ I said lighting another cigarette. ‘Well I can do that.’

Pat smiled broadly, ‘That’s the spirit.’ The sun was bearing down on us and he was sweating and obviously in a great deal of discomfort.

‘Why don’t you take off your jacket?’ I said to him.

‘I can’t, my cigarettes are in the pockets and I’ve nowhere else to put them,’ he replied flatly. That was the conclusive end to that conversation.

I looked at auld Willie. ‘So, you like cigars?’

‘Naw,’ he rasped. ‘But my family made me give up cigarettes and now I smoke thirty of these things every day. Fuck!’

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About the Author

Born in Glasgow, Ronnie Smith has lived and worked in Romania for the past eight years and is getting back into the writing of fiction after a long break. He publishes in Romania, in English and Romanian, and hopes to be published more in Scotland in the future. He is currently working on a novel set in post-independence Scotland.